Matchee Update

Matchee

Matchee seems to have stabilized with 1 view per day and 1 sale per month.  Having just let it sit in the app store for the first 6 months I was curious what the problem was and decided to poke around the store and see how easy it was to find Matchee.

I decided to search first for one of the keywords I had entered: "Memory".  There were two problems:

1. 928 Apps were returned from the search for Memory
2. Matchee was some where in the middle, around 500, doubtful that anyone would make it that far

Next I decided to search for "Match" since that was in the name and a keyword

1. That returned 2577 apps!!!
2. After scrolling for a few minutes I gave up trying to find Matchee... if I gave up it probably isn't likely that anyone else will find it either in the sea of matching apps.

So apparently...

1. Even though I think I added a new twist to matching, don't pick an app genre that is so easy anyone can crank out thousands of matching apps
2. Matchee is apparently dead in the app store, at least from being found in there, external advertising would be the only hope now

Patch Rejected

After waiting 5 days for my patch to make it through the approval process it was rejected!  This isn't a good start!  According to the tester, the patch was rejected due to the app not working in the snap view.  This is interesting:

1. I didn't change any code from my original release in this area, if it is a problem now, it would have been a problem in my original release.  Is the approval process so subjective that it would vary from tester to tester so drastically?  I didn't do anything different with this app vs. the previous two apps either, so it would appear that I got unlucky this time
2. It is frustrating that this would hold up a patch that it is fixing a bug/adding requested features for my users.  Especially since resubmitting will cause another 5 day lag and now what was a 4 hours after the problem solution is turning into a 10 day ( at a minimum ) turn around.  I can understand if this was the original submission, but to hold up a patch seems like it isn't helping the end user's experience and happiness.
3. I don't really want the app to play in snap view, I want to be full screen only.  I updated the code to display my logo, will that get through?
4. Is there now a new emphasis of the testers on snap view with it being more heavily featured in Windows 8.1?  Or did I just get the lucky tester?
5. I tested my app in snap view ( prior to my adding of the logo ) and didn't notice any major problems, it entered and exited snap view fine.  There were some drawing issues, but enough to reject? Not sure.

First Comments

I received my first comment on my app! ... uh oh, it's negative!  To be fair, the points the user makes are valid and I decide to quickly release a patch to add functionality that was mentioned in the comment.

Unfortunately submitting a patch to the app store is the exact same process as submitting the app for the first time.  Yes, the information that you spent a couple of hours entering in about your app is still there, but the approval process is the same... an expected 5 days from issuing the patch before it will be available to users.  That seems unfortunate as I had a patch ready to go 4 hours after receiving the comment.  Now I'll just have to wait the 5 days.

Poker Tournament - Texas Holdem Week 2

Poker Tournament - Texas Hold'em

Currently my app is on the Top Paid list in the Windows 8 store and is at the tail end of the new releases category.  Sales picked up after the first 3 days and have been pretty stead at around 20 per day.

It is hard to tell in the store analytics how users are getting to the app.  Are they searching for poker or finding it on the Top Paid/New Releases pages?  Unfortunately the developer tools don't appear to give you this information.

To date, I've had $199 in sales.

Proceeds:

Total Cost: $1330
Matchee Earnings: $44
Boxes Earnings: $23
Poker Tournament - Texas Hold'em Earnings: $199

Total Proceeds: ($1064)

Poker Tournament - Texas Hold'em Week 1

Poker Tournament - Texas Hold'em

So far, after week 1, the poker app has already received more downloads than Boxes and is closing in on Matchee.  While perhaps not paying the bills, it is at least promising that poker is receiving more traction than the previous efforts.

Proceeds:

Total Cost: $1330
Matchee Earnings: $44
Boxes Earnings: $23
Poker Tournament - Texas Hold'em Earnings: $33

Total Proceeds: ($1230)

Poker Tournament - Texas Hold'em Summary

Poker Tournament - Texas Hold'em

To Date:

1 week in the Windows 8 app store
205 hours spent
33 sales for $33.97
195 page views
0 non-friend comments
1 friend comments

Poker Tournament - Texas Hold'em

I lost ~2 months of development time due to working overtime at my real job, but on 5/20/2013, I was able to pass the certification and get into the app store a 3rd time.

Poker Tournament - Texas Hold'em

A screenshot from the gameplay:



When playing tournament mode, this it map that shows where you are in the country on the path to Vegas:



Showing the winning of a badge during gameplay.  There are 45 different badges that can be earned in the game.



The trophy room showing the badges/trophies that have been earned to date:



The start screen:





It took me longer to complete poker than my previous apps.

Code: 185 hours
Art: 20 hours

Total Time: 205 hours

App #3

With the holiday I took a short break for creating apps to try to think of the next idea.  I settled on creating a Texas Hold'em poker app.  I wanted to create a framework where I could use the idea for other card games in the future.  My hope would be that after an initial investment, I would be able to turn around and produce new games such as Blackjack, etc. using the same code base.

My other thought was that I needed to turn out a higher quality app.  While I was pleased with Matchee and had added new twists to the game, I hadn't taken the same enhancement to Boxes and that was showing in the sales.

Proceeds

6 months in:

Total Costs: $1330
Matchee Proceeds: $44
Boxes Proceeds: $24

Net Proceeds: ($1262)

Boxes Summary

Boxes

To date:

6 months in the Windows 8 app store
25 hours spent
24 sales for $24.82
666 page views
0 non-friend comments
3 friend comments

Boxes: 6 Months Later

Boxes

After 6 months in the app store Boxes followed a similar start to Matchee, though quickly showed signs of not selling at the same pace, even though that was very slow.

Looking at the graph for Boxes:

 

 

Things looked promising in November in the launch and then in December with 11 sales.  Things took a dramatic plunge after the holidays and to date sales are almost non existent.  In the last 3 months I've had 3 sales.

Let's take a look at how many views Boxes has had:



 

This makes the conversion rate 24/666 = 3.6%

Compared to Matchee for a similar 6 month period
Matchee: 755 page views for 43 sales
Boxes: 666 page views for 24 sales

Boxes

On 11/26/13 my second app, Boxes, passed certification and was available in the app store.  I was happy that in 2 weeks I was able to go through the process and get an app in for the Christmas rush.

http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/boxes/a7ebc33d-1abd-4248-80fe-6e18e3dd7614

Human vs. Human game on hard difficulty:



Start screen:



Statistics screen:



Human vs computer on easy difficulty:



Medium difficulty:

Windows Store Submission Part 2

Having learned my lesson with the two lost weeks in the store with Matchee, I made sure that I focused on the startup time of the app.  I was fairly confident that Dots and Boxes would pass the tests and sure enough, I was able to make it through the process on the first attempt.

Dots and Boxes App Completion

Dots and Boxes went fairly according to schedule.  I was able to turn out the finished product in much shorter time frame than the previous effort with Matchee.

Coding: 20 hours
Artwork: 5 hours

Total hours: 25 hours

I was happy with the turn around of the app in the short time, I hoped it was proof that the setup of my framework would pay off for future apps.

App #2

As Matchee was completing its approval process I decided to start my next app.  In retrospect I was concerned that targeting essentially a kids game with my first app wasn't a smart move as families were probably not going to be the first adopters of Windows 8.

I also wanted to work on an app that required less effort on the art aspect and more on the code.  I decided to work on an app based on the game Dots and Boxes.  I figured that I would be able to finish the app in time for the Christmas rush.

Matchee: Summary

Matchee

To date:

6 months in the Windows 8 app store
115 hours spent
43 sales for $44
755 page views
0 non-friend comments
3 friend comments

Laptop

After completing my first app I decided that my work environment was not conducive to generating apps on a regular basis.  Not only was my desk setup uncomfortable, but sitting in the office away from my family was not going to be a long term solution that would allow me to continue to develop new apps.

Still not frustrated by the lack of initial success, I decided to go all in and purchase a new Windows 8 touch screen laptop.  I figured this would allow me to develop in the family room when the kids were in bed and we were watching TV.  In addition it would provide a touch enabled device that would allow me to test a more representative piece of hardware as my target systems.  Finally, buying a new laptop with an i5 processor would allow me to emulate ARM mode to have more complete testing.

After much research I settled on the Lenovo Yoga 13 and found a holiday sale for roughly $1080 with tax.

Total Costs: $1330
Total Sales: $44

Net Proceeds: ($1286)

Matchee: 6 Months Later

Matchee

After 6 months in the Windows 8 app store with Matchee I have sold 43 copies to date.  The following graph shows the adoption per month:

As you can see, I had an initial lead up of sales towards Christmas that gave some promise, but things have stalled in 2013.  The 11 sales in January was sort of exciting because I took it as indicative that more families with kids ( my target audience ) had been purchasing my app, or an increase of Microsoft Surface RTs was paying dividends.

Up until this point I'd done no advertising and relied solely on the Windows App Store search in order to lead to the discovery of Matchee.  Apparently this was not a winning strategy.

To date, Matchee has had 755 page views:

It is hard to tell how many of those 755 views were me in my initial excitement at having the app in the store and refreshing the page :).  Ignoring that, my conversion rate is currently 43/755 = 5.7%

Matchee: Month 1

As my first month ended within the app store, it came with dubious results.  I had a grand total of .... 7 sales.  4 of which had come from friends I had enlisted.  Not the start I had hoped for, but I was willing to chalk it up to not many people having Windows 8 and hoped that it would get better.

I made $1.49 per sale, of which Microsoft takes 30%.  I have to earn up to $200 in my account before receiving payment.

Total Costs: $250
Total Sales: ~$7

Net Proceeds: ($243)

Matchee

Matchee: Windows 8 Store Search

Excited to see my app finally make it into the store I wanted to see what the competition looked like and how easy it was to find my app.  On submission to the store you were asked to select a handful of keywords that were associated with your app.   I assumed that these would be the criteria used for searching the Windows 8 app store.

The first step was looking at the New Releases in the store.  Hmm, Matchee didn't appear to be listed here.  Why not?  I never figured that out.

Next, I decided to search for one of my keywords: Memory.  Sure enough, putting memory into the search bar returned over 100 apps, but unfortunately, none of them were Matchee.  This was also frustrating as it was one of the keywords I had selected.

A search for "Match" did return Matchee, though I presume only because "Match" was in the name Matchee.  It appeared the keywords I had entered did not carry the same weight as the title of the app, at the moment it appeared that they carried almost no weight.

By this time, I had enlisted 4 friends to purchase Matchee and 1 of them had given the game a 5 star review.  Because of the review I instantly shot up to the top spot in the Games->Kids category when sorted by rating.

Not super excited about searching for my own app, I was at least encouraged that people looking for games within the Kids subcategory would at least be presented with my app in the top 10.

Matchee